Sunday, 18 September 2011

Meet the Brindles

One day, not so very long ago, I was on a Team Fortress 2 server, and, by chance, I was playing under the name of ‘John Brindle’. There is bitter disagreement about who came first, but soon I was joined by other members of the Brindle family. Initially there were only a couple; then their ranks grew and grew until cp_dustbowl was a Brindletopia and the whole server resembled our family history writ large, brother versus brother, vicious struggle, and no quarter given. That day the first few of us decided that we wanted to write about the pastime that has taken so much of our time and affected our lives so much. For us, the argument as to whether or not videogames are art has already been won. Henceforth, it will never be mentioned again.

We are calling all Brindles. We know you’re out there – members of our family, with the same roots and concerns and dysfunctions as us, and no better. We are calling you out of your pits, out of your lairs, out of the desperate places where you’ve made your homes. You know who you are.

About Us

The Brindles are a gaming family from the American Midwest. We analyse and criticise videogames because we want to understand what they mean and how they mean. We are our own worst enemies, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.